(Content warning—this email discusses this week's violent attacks against Asian Americans in Atlanta)

Friend,

This week, 8 people—including 6 Asian women—were brutally murdered at Asian-owned spas in and near Atlanta. Those identified so far include Delaina Yaun, 33, of Acworth; Paul Andre Michels, 54, of Atlanta; Xiaojie Tan, 49, of Kennesaw; and Daoyou Feng, 44.

This devastating hate crime came in the midst of already-rising violent attacks on Asian Americans during the coronavirus pandemic. Already, many Asian Americans—particularly women—have been fearing for their safety.

Among all violent attacks on Asian Americans in the past year, nearly 70% have been against Asian American women, according to a recent study by Stop AAPI Hate.¹

This mass shooting highlights the dangerous combination of racist hate and gendered hate, specifically targeting Asian women.

The mass murderer blamed the women he killed for what he referred to as his “sexual addiction.” (Note: the businesses and victims may not have ties to sex work.) And the local sheriff’s department has propped up the shooter’s disturbing and misogynistic remarks that the Atlanta-area spas were “a temptation for him that he wanted to eliminate.”

As Catherine Ceniza Choy, professor of ethnic studies at UC Berkeley, responded: “Killing Asian American women to eliminate a man's temptation speaks to the history of the objectification of Asian and Asian American women as variations of the Asian temptress, the dragon ladies and the lotus blossoms, whose value is only in relation to men's fantasies and desires. This is horrifying. Stop fetishizing us.”²

The clear victim-blaming also perpetuates rape culture.

Sung Yeon Choimorrow, executive director of the nonprofit National Asian Pacific American Women's Forum, explained: “It's akin to ‘I raped her because her skirt was too short.’ No — you raped her because society has told you you're entitled to women,” she said. “It absolutely gaslights Asian women, and [it] does play into how hypersexualized we are by society.”

Adding to the patriarchal dehumanization, Captain Jay Baker of the Cherokee County Sheriff's office callously tried to defend the shooter, saying: “He was pretty much fed up, at the end of his rope and this was a very bad day for him and this is what he did.”

This is absolutely unacceptable white supremacist misogyny in action—it is an entitlement to violence and dominance against women, in particular Asian women. As if it weren’t a far worse day for the women the shooter killed, or their families, or their communities, or Asian American women and people more broadly. As if women have to pay if men have a “bad day.”

Although outrageous, it’s unfortunately not surprising that white male police are making excuses for and coming to the defense of this white male mass murderer—especially given the history of white supremacist infiltration of law enforcement and a pattern of domestic abusers in police forces.

Captain Baker in particular had promoted anti-Asian t-shirts on social media last year, referring to the “imported virus from Chy-na.”³

No wonder so many activist groups and Asian American communities have spoken out against increased police surveillance as a response to this tragedy. More police won’t make our neighbors safer.

Instead of more law enforcement, the National Asian Pacific American Women’s Forum is asking elected officials for a response that centers the needs of the communities on the ground, including services such as “increased culturally informed victim support, community support, meaningful physical and mental health access including for all immigrants, and economic assistance.”⁴

Unfortunately, media outlets and police have failed to address this crisis as the intersectional issue that it is, which obscures the systems of oppression at work and dismisses the specific trauma that Asian and Asian American women have already been facing.

In the United States, Asian and Asian American women live at the intersection of racism, misogyny, and xenophobia, and in the context of our country’s long history of anti-Asian racism and imperialism, both of which have often specifically targeted Asian women.

Among the most vulnerable Asian women in the U.S. are undocumented immigrant women, particularly sex workers (though it’s not clear any of the Atlanta victims practiced sex work)—who’ve been unjustly targeted in popular culture and by police for many years.

It’s important to recognize that all these factors are at play in this tragedy, and to fight back against the dangerous ideologies that got us here. We must affirm that Asian and Asian American women are NOT disposable.

This horrific hate crime makes it all the more urgent for the Senate to pass the bill we just passed in the U.S. House: the 2021 expansion and reauthorization of the Violence Against Women Act, which would provide essential assistance for community groups and for survivors.

Timed to honor Women’s History Month, we also just passed a bill to enable the Equal Rights Amendment, which would ban sex-based discrimination in our Constitution.

But this Women’s History Month, it’s essential to remember that women experience this world differently, facing hugely different obstacles based on factors like our race and ethnicity.

We must bring an intersectional lens to our feminism, our governing, and our communities. In this time of mourning, may we center the voices of people most affected by this tragedy.

In love and grief and rage and solidarity,

Rashida